What Does Leaving Green Sleeves Mean?

[Tri-me]

Yes, he is my current boyfriend, I will just call him Edwardo for his privacy. Have known him for years and finally decided to give him a chance. He said to say hi Jo, he still thinks about you from time to time. He calls me Greensleeves. Here is a better photo of him.

[lizzytysh]

I remember you talking about him awhile back... isn't he the one you held hands, skipped, and sang with on your way walking home?

Yes ~ he does resemble Depp, Margaret. Well, he's gorgeous in any case, Tri-me . I was thinking the photo was there to give us an idea of the guy in your story, but I guess it's the guy in your current story, instead .

~ Lizzy

[MikeM]

From wikipedia:
"In 1973, Cohen, who had traveled to Jerusalem to sign up on the Israeli side in the Yom Kippur War, had instead been assigned to a USO-style entertainer tour of front-line tank emplacements in the Sinai Desert, at one of which he both came under fire and reportedly shared cognac with an unlikely self-professed fan, then-General Ariel Sharon. Disillusioned by encounters with captured and wounded enemy troops, and having expressed ambivalence from the start about the causes of the conflict, he eventually left, but not before beginning to write his song "Lover Lover Lover," as he later claimed, "for the soldiers of both sides.""

Since this song is released the year after, I believe he has reworked the old "Greensleeves" song to his version, "Leaving Green Sleeves", (notice that he puts in a space in green-sleeves) to describe his experiences of leaving the army after being disillusioned and no longer believing in a just cause for the war.

He is leaving the green sleeves, which refer to the green sleeves of military uniforms.

In the lines...:

I sang my songs, I told my lies,
to lie between your matchless thighs.

...He is addressing his assignment as a propaganda singer for the soldiers. Which he now that he has left the army feels was a position that included telling lies.

[lizzytysh]

Hi Mike ~

Welcome to the Forum... and thanks for this GREAT information from Wikipedia, where I rarely go and unless by link happenstance. If I ever knew this about "Lover Lover Lover" and " . . . Green Sleeves," etc. I had forgotten it and definitely appreciate being reminded of it, or to learn it for the first time. I hope it's accurate info, and not the way someone chose to interpret these two songs.


~ Lizzy

[MikeM]

Hi Lizzy

Thanks for the welcome!

I'm sorry if I was unclear in my previous post. The quote from wikipedia is only the paragraph within the quotation marks.

So I don't really know anything about "Lover Lover Lover", but if there is any help here is a quote from Cohen himself: "This next song was written about a year ago in the Sinaï desert for soldiers of both sides." (Quote found on this page: http://perso.orange.fr/pilgraeme/, a great page with quotes from Leonard Cohen)

As for the interpretation of "Leaving Green Sleeves" it's just my own theory of what the song could be about. So feel free to criticize or question this interpretation. That is the reason I posted it, to see what other people think about it.

I'm sorry for not making that clear. But in my defense I'm a slow and inpatient typer.

[lizzytysh]

Ahhhhh, yes... I see those little buggery-boo quotation marks sitting either end of that paragraph. Had I paid closer attention to your punctuation, I'd have at least guessed that, that was the only Wikipedia portion... or simply known it... one or the other .

Your theories make good sense in the way that Leonard works his words. That quote you've given regarding "Lover . . . " pretty well does it for me. It makes TOTAL sense that Leonard would compose a song that applies to the young soldiers on either side going to war, with their loved one at home, singing for their safe return. So like Leonard. Listening to his comments to the audience in Warsaw in a concert some time ago, also makes the point that he recognizes some truth, no matter the side.


~ Lizzy